A large and growing industry has developed around the preparation and serving of pizza as a food item. Preparation of a pizza typically requires forming a flattened crust made of dough containing major proportions of flour and water, kneaded, and rolled to shape. The crust forms the base to hold the cheese, sauce and other pizza toppings.
After the toppings are in place, the pizza is placed in an oven and baked until the dough is cooked thoroughly enough to form a firm crust while the toppings are cooked as well and the process must be timed to allow both crust and toppings to be fully cooked without burning one or the other. Some varieties of pizza are baked in shallow pans or trays, and the preparation of such pizzas often requires the use of oils, fats or other lubricants to prevent the crust from sticking once cooked. Use of such lubricants is undesirable because they are costly and require significant cleanup efforts.
During the baking process, pizzas must be monitored to make sure that the crust does not overcook or burn. This is often difficult to do when a commercial oven contains numerous pizzas cooking simultaneously.
One major concern of pizza makers is achieving and thereafter maintaining crispness in the dough crust. Although pizza is generally served as a restaurant food itme, pizzas are also very often taken home or delivered to the home for comsumption. Leftover pizza is often refrigerated and reheated to be eaten later. I have found that the cooling and/or subsequent reheating of conventionally made pizza causes the crust to lose whatever initial crispness it may have had. I have also found that the baking tecnhiques required to produce a crust of considerable crispness may also dictate that the pizza be left in the oven longer than is provident, accentuating the risk of burning or overcooking the crust or the toppings. I have also found that the use of oils or fats contributes to the sogginess of crusts baked in trays or pans.
Accordingly, the need exists for a material and method of preparing pizza dough which will cook up into a crisp pizza crust and which will maintain its original crispness through subsequent cooling and reheating.
I am aware that others have utilized certain food additives in processes intended to modify the characteristics of products made from baking dough. Most are intended to prevent or limit the tendency of raw dough to stick to mixing implements and the baking or cooking surfaces.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,407,839 (Corbeil et al.) teaches and described the uses of dusting powders in general and, in particular, the use of salt in a dusting composition as an inhibitor to insect growth. U.S. Pat. No. 1,499,080 (Short et al.) teaches a dusting power comprising corn flour mixed with wheat flour. U.S. Pat. No. 2,949,365 (Becker et al.) teaches the blending of edible fat and flour for use as an anti-stick baking compound.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,171,747 (Kessinger), the use of a starch-and-edible-oil mixture intended for use as a dusting powder is taught. U.S. Pat. No. 3,317,323 (Lawrence) teaches a dusting compound used to allow the separation of segments of refrigerated biscuit dough. The compound includes edible oxidizing agent and rice flour. U.S. Pat. No. 3,177,081 (Kleinschmidt et al.) teaches the use of tricalcium phosphate and white corn flour in a process for producing packaged refrigerated dough products.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,012,506 (Griffith) teaches an edible dusting powder for doughnuts consisting of a grease-absorbing powder synthesized from starch grains, a sweetening agent and a grease impregnated into the grease-absorbant powder. U.S. Pat. No. 2,144,371 (Griffith) is a variation of the foregoing dusting powder, teaching the use of a blend of edible fats to produce a dusting powder suitable for packaged doughnuts.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,614,945 (Krisan) teaches and describes a dusting powder manufactured from starch treated to limit the hygroscopic tendencies of the starch. U.S. Pat. No. 1,483,704 (Wilcox) teaches the application of fat in a finely-granulated form to baking dough for baking loaves of bread.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,377,171 (Ryan et al.) teaches a dusting mixture made from starches to which vegetable oil, tricalcium phosphate and other oils and fats are added to modify the flow characteristics of the starch. U.S. Pat. No. 2,739,896 (Block et al.) teaches a doughnut dusting composition utilizing blends of hydrated and anhydrous dextrose to achieve the desired flow characteristics for the dusting powder. U.S. Pat. No. 2,793,123 (Haas) teaches a dusting powder for mass baking operations to produce bakery products such as bread loaves.
There are also known in the art various coating compositions used to create batter-like a crisp outer coating for cooked food. Exemplary of these are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,640,837 (Coleman et al.); 4,199,603 (Sortwell III); 4,496,601 (Rispoli et al.); and 4,518,618 (Hsia et al.), all of which teach various coating mixtures used to impart a crisp texture to non-fried food, i.e., food cooked in a microwave oven or a conventional oven.
Also of interest is U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,620 (Monagle et al.) which teaches and describes the use of product known as Japanese-style bread crumbs to produce a breading batter for foods. Monagle et al. teach the use of such a batter for microwave cooking to produce a finished product with a crisp, crunchy coating otherwise obtainable only by frying or through the use of microwave baking accessories such as browning skillets or crispers. Use of the Japanese-style bread crumbs described by Monagle et al. is the subject of U.S. Pat. No. 4,068,009 (Rispoli et al.), assigned to General Foods Corporation. The bread crumbs in question consist essentially of wheat flour, yeast, and salt, and have an elongated porous and striated structure. Use of such bread crumbs in preparing food coatings is also described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,601 (Rispoli et al.), along with other coating formulations (See Rispoli et al., Column 1, Lines 24 through 31). Each of the before mentioned patents is directed to a dusting or coating material applied to the outer surface of the article to be cooked and in no case is the material integrated with or used as a componet of the baking dough itself.